Landscape or Sustainability?Is there a choice? Merfyn Williams,
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An unfortunate facet of the broad environmental movement in Wales is the school of thought that displays a rather narrow orthodoxy which seems to imply that we must agree blindly to what is termed 'green' and support it all costs.
Those who do not comply with this orthodoxy are branded preservationists, Nimbys or just plain reactionaries who simply do not understand and therefore at best ought to be ignored. This orthodoxy leads people to imply that landscape beauty and amenity are not significant factors within sustainable development and can be easily put aside.
Another article in this edition of Rural Wales (The Countryside: our future - whose future?) describes the recently published Rural White Paper for England. This document places a great deal of emphasis on the qualities of the English countryside particularly in relation to landscape and wildlife conservation.
We can gain a great deal from the messages in this document.
The basis of the document is the aim to "sustain and enhance the distinctive environment, economy and social fabric of the English countryside for the benefit for all".
The words 'sustain and enhance' certainly press the right buttons in our environmental consciences and throughout there is reference to 'countryside character' and how this can be nurtured 'for its own sake' but also as a significant economic asset. The Countryside Agency with English Nature (the old NCC) and English Heritage (the equivalent to CADW) have drawn up a map entitled 'The Character of England - major landscape characteristics' in order
"to raise understanding of what gives the different areas of our countryside that diversity and distinctiveness".
The characteristics of these areas then form the basis for land use programmes and planning decisions and local authorities are required "to seek ways enrich the countryside as a whole".
It seems to me that if there is anywhere within the UK that can claim distinctiveness and character and special landscape characteristics in abundance, it is Wales.
This is not to say 'we're better than them' but it refers to the fact that in a relatively small part of the UK, we have a tremendous richness and diversity of landscape and wildlife. This is attested by the fact that we have three National Parks, five Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty covering well over a quarter of the land plus, in the north west of the country, the highest density of nature conservation sites in Europe.
Not only that but much of mid-Wales only failed by a whisker 
to be designated a National Park (called then the Cambrian Mountains National Park) where by now much of that area is either owned by a conservation trust (Elan Valley Conservation Trust), is an Environmentally Sensitive Area (ESA) or is recognised by its local authorities as Special Landscape Areas (SLAs). SLAs are not national designations but are identified by Local Authorities in their Development Plans as particularly sensitive landscape areas in terms of land use.
And there are other areas aplenty which take one's breath away. To anybody who has stood on Mynydd y Gwryd/Mynydd Uchaf above Gwaun Cae Gurwen and savoured what Ivor Russell has described as the 'the most glorious geological amphitheatre in the UK' that may be the place. We could go anywhere in Wales and feel that we have arrived at the 'place'. The list of 'the places' seems never ending. In fact, of course, it is not - each 'place' is precious and sensitive and in need of protection.
And now are we to say that people who wish to protect those places are merely 'preservationists' or Nimbys?
There is a proposal to erect 5 wind turbines on Mynydd Uchaf and in public meetings in January a good number of the residents of Gwaun Cae Gurwen, Tair Gwaith, Cwm Llynfell (to name but
three villages) were up in arms about the scheme. These were people who have worked the coal mines and lived with open cast for forty years. Were they middle class preservationists? Incomer Nimbys? No, they were ordinary folk who want to protect their special place on the edge of Mynydd Du and the Brecon Beacons.
As for mid Wales, the orthodoxy states, in somewhat ironic fashion, that this is 'the green desert' whose function is to accommodate as many mega sized turbines as possible. The massive project at Cefn Croes (39 x 1.5MW turbines up to 100 metres high) would go some way to satisfying this wish but at what cost to the character of the place? This is in proximity to and of a similar character to the place (Drygan Fawr) described by Jim Perrin in his Spirit of Place as "the best, strangest and most remote of Welsh hills, the taunting presence of which tenses your topographical sense from miles away."
In the context of sustainable development we are urged to 'Think global, act local'.
In the global scheme of things Wales ('y cilcyn hwn o ddaear') is tiny and what we do here most of the time has little, if any, effect on the global picture. We can follow the orthodoxy and have renewable energy schemes all over the place and it would have little effect. In rural Wales we could all go on buses and trains from one place to another and have little effect.
This is not to say that we should not have renewable energy schemes or use public transport. Of course we should, but only when they are environmentally and economically acceptable.
In the global dimension what has Wales to offer? How can we act locally effectively?
England has shown the way.
We must urge our local authorities 'to enrich the countryside as a whole';
we must urge our planners to help turn our landscape and heritage characteristics into economic assets. We have so much to offer to the world.
Are we to be hidebound by the green orthodoxy or are we brave enough to step out and make our case for the aesthetic, for the preciousness of space?
And is that not an essential element in sustainability? Will future generations thank us for caring for
the Welsh countryside 'for the benefit for all' because we have made an insignificant contribution to renewable energy and compromised our rurality or because we have cared for and protected our special places so that people from all over the world can draw spiritual sustenance from them?
Or is there another alternative?
By including the imperative of the aesthetic into our policy thinking from the start as an integral component of the sustainable development agenda, that agenda becomes complete.
Sustainable development or landscape beauty is not a choice. There is no choice. They must be part and parcel of the same thing.
Merfyn Williams
www.cprw.org.uk/magartcl/landsust.htm